Defendants and their families across four Mississippi counties are stuck waiting, sometimes for months, as a staggered schedule of court closures works its way through the Eleventh Circuit Court District. The closures, ordered by Circuit Court Judge Charles Webster, have hit Coahoma, Tunica, Quitman and Bolivar counties on a rolling basis since early October, and defense attorneys say the fallout is landing squarely on people already caught up in the system.
According to FOX13 Memphis, Webster's order for the closures ran from October 6 through the last week of November. Defense attorney Meg Coker told the station that some of her criminal cases are now stalled as a direct result. The Eleventh Circuit, per Coahoma County's circuit court records, is made up of Bolivar, Coahoma, Quitman and Tunica counties, with Webster serving alongside Circuit Court Judge Linda F. Coleman and Senior Circuit Court Judge W. Hunter Nowell.
A Rolling Schedule Across Four Counties
The closure schedule, as laid out in the FOX13 report, has moved county to county for weeks. Bolivar and Tunica counties were affected during the week of October 12, Bolivar County again on October 19, and Tunica County on October 26. Cleveland and Bolivar County saw closures on November 2 and again on November 9, Coahoma County closed on November 16, and Cleveland and Bolivar County are slated to close again on November 23.
Circuit courts in Mississippi handle felony criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits, according to Bolivar County's circuit court information page, which also notes that circuit judges are chosen in nonpartisan elections to four-year terms. That makes the circuit court the venue where felony cases are ultimately resolved — and where a closure can leave a case in limbo even after a lower court has already set bail.
Staffing Shortfall at the DA's Office
The report also points to a staffing gap at the district attorney's office for Circuit 11. District Attorney Brenda Mitchell's office was supposed to have five full-time legal assistants, also referred to as assistant district attorneys, but had only two, the station's report states. Judge Webster described the staffing shortage as a current, hopefully temporary hardship on the office. FOX13 Investigates said it reached out to Mitchell for comment.
Months of Waiting for an Indictment
For defendants, the practical effect is a long stretch of uncertainty. Coker told the outlet that defendants may wait months for their next court date or an indictment. She said an arrest today could mean an indictment doesn't come until February — potentially around three months later — and even that estimate assumes the case file is already ready to be presented to a grand jury.
Grand juries typically convene twice a year in each county within the circuit, per the same account from Coker. But that schedule has already slipped: the grand jury in Coahoma County that had been set for December was canceled, with the next one not scheduled until May 2027. Coker also said it remained uncertain whether Tunica County would even hold a grand jury in February 2027.
What the Numbers Show, and What They Don't
Independent data offers some context on the Eleventh Circuit's caseload, though it stops short of confirming the scale of the current backlog. A Mississippi legislative analysis dated February 12, 2024, found Circuit District 11's population of 68,333 sits 46.93% below the statewide circuit-district average, according to the Mississippi Circuit and Chancery Court Systems Population and Caseload report. That same analysis put the statewide average caseload at 630 total civil and criminal cases per circuit judge, and an earlier 2022 case table in the report listed District 11 with three judges handling 526 combined cases, or 175 per judge — well below the statewide figure.
By comparison, a 2023 report from Mississippi Today found Hinds County's Seventh Circuit Court District carrying 2,508 pending cases, or 627 per judge across four judges, while the First Circuit Court District in the northeast part of the state had 8,522 pending cases, or roughly 2,130 per judge. That same report cautioned that Mississippi Electronic Courts, the state's only public-facing case-tracking system, did not keep accurate information on pending cases — a limitation that makes it difficult to know exactly how the Eleventh Circuit's current backlog compares to its neighbors.
